Tasos Symeonides was born in Greece and moved to Scotland in his early teens when his parents relocated to Glasgow.

After studying computer science at Glasgow University, which he followed up with a Masters in statistics, Symeonides began his career with the American computer hardware manufacturer Burrows, now called Unisys.

He left Burrows to join the Royal Bank of Scotland designing security trusted investment systems, an experience he said taught him "how not to do a lot of things because of the slow environment and the tendency to overkill the process by overdoing it".

Four years later he was on the move again, this time with NCR in Dundee, leaving two years later for a job in Kuwait designing visa credit card systems. He returned to Scotland three years later, joining retailer John Menzies as their computer systems manager.

It was the purchase of a new house in Edinburgh's Eskbank area that prompted the idea of starting Axios Systems. A walk in the park wondering how he was going to pay the mortgage was enough to convince Symeonides that he should probably start out on his own.

He announced his resignation from John Menzies a few weeks later, and worked 17-hour days for the next five years developing his IT management software for the market while taking on consultancy work to pay the bills while the company was still in its early stages of growth.

As the company grew, so too did the demands on the family home. The dining room became the boardroom for the fledgling company; the kitchen used for meetings and running the marketing of the new software, and occasionally a family meal.

Before the move to their first offices in Edinburgh, Axios Systems ran with 16 employees at the Symeonides family home. The first customer for Axios Systems IT management software turned out to be his former employer, John Menzies. A contract with the Scottish Health Service followed, which opened the door to larger contracts with the Home office and the Ministry of Defence.

The company last year announced profits of £2million, has offices in a dozen countries, including the Middle East, Europe, the United States and most recently Russia.